Save Simon Johnson's American farmhouse!

• More than a million Swedes left their homeland between 1850-1930, in search of jobs, land, and religious freedom.

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• By 1910, one-fifth of the world’s Swedish population lived in America, creating Swedish communities across the United States including Texas, Kansas and Washington.

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• Massachusetts was the gateway for many of these Swedes. However, enough of them stayed in Massachusetts to give it the fourth largest Swedish-born population in the 1900 U.S. census, behind just Minnesota, Illinois and New York (ancestry.com). This statistic has not been well publicized until now.

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• Swedish immigrants in Massachusetts formed their largest communities in Brockton, Worcester, and Pittsfield, but they also branched out to the smaller towns of Burlington, Woburn, East Bridgewater, Waltham and Winchester, among others. 

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• In these communities they built businesses, founded churches andworked as farmers, factory workers, bakers, cobblers, carpenters, servants; andbecame doctors, lawyers and politicians. “Swedish self-reliance and integrity in business and personal affairs earned the respect of the total community.” (The Swedes of Greater Brockton; Benson and Thompson)